Toddler shootings up in 2016

Increase calls certain states’ lax gun storage laws into question

This past week, a Milwaukee toddler fatally shot his mother after finding a handgun in the back seat of the car they were riding in. The case drew national attention given the unusual circumstances: Little kids rarely kill people, intentionally or not.

But this type of thing happens more frequently than one might think. Since April 20, there have been at least seven instances in which a 1- , 2- or 3-year-old shot themselves or somebody else in the United States:

On April 20, a 2-year-old boy in Indiana found the gun his mother left in her purse on the kitchen counter and fatally shot himself.

The next day in Kansas City, Mo., a 1-year-old girl evidently shot and killed herself with her father’s gun while he was sleeping.

On April 22, a 3-year-old in Natchitoches, La., fatally shot himself after getting hold of a gun.

On April 26, a 3-year-old boy in Dallas, Ga., fatally shot himself in the chest with a gun he found at home.

On April 27, the Milwaukee toddler fatally shot his mother in the car. And that same day, a 3-year-old boy in Grout Township, Mich., shot himself in the arm with a gun he found at home. He is expected to survive.

On April 29, a 3-year-old girl shot herself in the arm after grabbing a gun in a parked car in Augusta, Ga. She is also expected to survive.

Last year, a Post analysis found toddlers were shooting people at a rate of about once a week. This year, that pace has accelerated. There have been at least 23 toddler-involved shootings since Jan. 1, compared with 18 over the same period last year.

In the vast majority of cases, the children accidentally shoot themselves. That’s happened 18 times this year, and in nine of those cases the children died of their wounds.

Toddlers have shot other people five times this year. Two of those cases were fatal: this week’s incident in Milwaukee, and that of a 3-year-old Alabama boy who fatally shot his 9-yearold brother in February.

Looking at where toddlers are pulling the trigger, some states stand out sharply.

Georgia is home to the highest number of toddler shootings, with at least eight incidents since January 2015. Texas and Missouri are tied for second place with seven shootings each, while Florida and Michigan are tied for fourth, with six s apiece.

You might think that toddler shootings are simply a function of population — the more people who live in an area, the more toddlers are likely to shoot someone. But that doesn’t appear to be wholly the case. California and New York are two high-population states that have seen only three toddler shootings between them since 2015.

This suggests that other factors might be at play in the states that see disproportionately high numbers of shootings by toddlers. Missouri and Georgia, for instance, have fairly lax laws regulating how guns are stored to prevent child access. On the other hand, New York has no such child access laws in place.

Perhaps other factors are at play as well. There could be cultural norms surrounding gun use and ownership, for instance, that might make these shootings more likely in some areas than others.

Sussing out cause and effect in these cases, in other words, is still largely a guessing game. And it’s a game made much more difficult by Congress’ efforts to restrict the type of gun research that agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are allowed to conduct.

Until 2004, for instance, the CDC routinely asked Americans about whether they stored guns at home, and whether they made a habit of locking them up. That’s no longer the case.